Starting The 12 Days Of Fitness (or I’ve Almost Earned Some More Swag)

Whenever Orangetheory has some challenge, like Hell Week, I try to participate. I don’t do every challenge, for example, I don’t do the transformation challenges since I don’t want the stress of what the scale says to affect me. But I like doing these challenges to push myself and have a little extra motivation. I’m pretty good about going to my 4 workouts a week, but anything that makes them a little easier to get to is a win.

Orangetheory is doing the 12 Days Of Fitness for the beginning of December. This challenge features 12 of the workouts we had this past year that were determined to be the most popular ones. And if you sign up for the challenge, you have to do 6 of the 12 workouts to earn a fleece blanket. I don’t need a fleece blanket, but I still want to earn it! I can always find a use for it and I want it just like I always want the Hell Week shirts even though I don’t usually wear them.

Fortunately for me, doing 6 of the 12 workouts fits in perfectly with my normal workout schedule. I won’t be earning my blanket until the 12th day, but I was able to get my first 4 workouts done for the challenge this past week.

Of the 4 workouts I had this past week, I had previously done 3 of them. But the only ones that I really remembered were Drop It Like A Squat and Tread Trail.

I remembered Tread Trail because it was very different to not know how long we would be doing different intensities on the treadmill. Normally, I can be mentally prepared knowing a push pace is only going to be a minute or I can take it a little easier if it’s going to be 3 minutes. While I try to do the same thing for my push pace no matter how long it’s going to be, I also know I need to go a bit easier when they are longer so I can be back to a base pace when they are done instead of needing a break. But when you don’t know how long you’ll be doing something, it’s much harder to pace yourself. I know that’s a good challenge to have since I don’t do that normally, but it also meant I was going a bit easier on myself for a lot of the workout because I was prepared for the intervals to be longer. But I tried to push myself harder when I could and I was happy with how I felt when the cardio block was done and I felt like I didn’t go too easy.

And I remembered Drop It Like A Squat because I remember how hard that workout was on my hips. Doing it another time wasn’t any different and I still had some struggles with hip pain during the workout. I know that squats are really good for me and they are also good for my hips, even if they hurt them a bit. I need to build the muscles around my hips in order to support them. One of the reasons I haven’t had more issues with my hips already is because I have built up those muscles around them so the side that has no cartilage is supported and my bones aren’t hitting each other. But that doesn’t make squats any easier on me. I just had to let my body be my guide and take breaks when I was hurting. But I still did so many squats in that workout and I felt that for a few days after!

I will have the last 2 workouts for this challenge this week so I can complete the challenge. I don’t mind that I’m going to be done on the last day possible since it’s just about completing it and not rushing to get it done. And even though this week shouldn’t be a bad week for me, I’m a little worried about how the beginning of the week might go. I’m writing this post on Saturday, and 2 days ago I got another Covid booster. I always have strong reactions to vaccines, and this has been no different. I know that having a reaction like this means my body is building an immune response and it’s a good sign, but it still feels like I’m sick. I’m hoping that I’ll be feeling fine by Monday, but I know that sometimes my reactions last longer than I would like. So it’s not a guarantee that I’ll be back to normal by the start of this week. But I’m used to working out when I’m not feeling my best, so at least it’s something that I know I can push through. And even if I’m still dealing with side effects during the week, it should be not as bad as I feel now, so that should help too. Hopefully, the sleep and rest I plan on getting this weekend will help me be over these side effects and my workouts this week will be just normal ones and I’ll finish out this challenge feeling like myself.

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